Wilberforce, Grace & Joy
I just read Amazing Grace in the Life of William Wilberforce by John Piper. I’d like to recommend it as a wonderful short biopic. It isn’t really a comprehensive biography, which is perhaps obvious due to its length, rather it is something of a picture as to what Piper sees as Wilberforce’s motivations and convictions.
Obviously it’s about Wilberforce, the great Parliamentary campaigner who succeeded in pushing the abolition of the slave trade through. Importantly however, Piper demonstrates from the start that abolition was a victory for neither humanity nor the parliamentary process. Rather it was a victory for the gospel.
Wilberforce’s work A Practical View of Christianity is used heavily to show that his Christian convictions required that Christianity be more than a set of doctrines held in one’s head, though by no means did he despise doctrine, it must a lively practical life where doctrine affects both heart and behaviour. He resoundingly attacked the prevalent Christian nominalism of his age. His Christian convictions were what caused him to campaign for abolition and numerous other worthy causes. He is a lesson to us in how a Christian should pursue social action: with Christ-centred gospel convictions.
It is probably unsurprising considering this book’s author that its main thrust centres on the life-changing joy Wilberforce found in Christ. This book oozes joy. Wilberforce faced enormous personal hardship and great political opposition, and yet was characterised as a man filled with child-like joy at all times. We can learn much from him. Not only did he endure, he endured joyfully with a joy that found its origin in Christ, the Cross and the glory of his great salvation of dead men. Would that our Christianity was not only a zealously radical life, but a joyfully radical one.
This book is incredibly short (and cheap, to boot!) and profoundly encouraging. It’s available from amazon here, or even cheaper on the Grace Church Nottingham bookstall!
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